


Boundless as the Sea

by BelladonnaWyck, raiast



Series: BellaRai Writes AU_Gust 2020 Prompts [22]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: A future Romeo and Juliet, Alternate Universe - Futuristic, Because even in the year 3000 society sucks, Evolved Human Species, Except with a much happier ending, First Kiss, Friendship, Hannibal has a crisis of identity, M/M, Persecution, Remnant Will, Teenage Hannigram, because nothing will ever tear our boys apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:49:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26046046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaWyck/pseuds/BelladonnaWyck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiast/pseuds/raiast
Summary: “H!” Will pulls Hannibal from his wandering thoughts, his face suddenly floating upside down in front of Hannibal’s as he flips his hoverboard to dangle in the air and look him in the eyes. “You’re doing that thing again where your eyes go all glazed and you look like a statue.”
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: BellaRai Writes AU_Gust 2020 Prompts [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860148
Comments: 6
Kudos: 81
Collections: AUgust 2020





	Boundless as the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Day 22 of AU_Gust Prompts is: Futuristic
> 
> Behold teenage Hannigram in the year 3087. Things are wild here and we have SO much to share with you guys at the end of August!

Hannibal Lecter knows he was born into the wrong Sect and he plans to prove it. He knows in his bones he isn’t a Stag, even though he doesn’t have the distinguishing tattoo marks of a Remnant, or anything outwardly obvious to prove he isn’t one. His genetic testing results will be returned to him within a few days and then, perhaps, the mystery will be solved.

If not, then he’s still a little iffy on exactly _how_ he plans to prove he isn’t a Stag, and he worries his best friend will abandon him if his results come back to indicate something is wrong with Hannibal, something more than just the phantom ache he feels between his shoulders and down his spine. His curiosity about his true nature is how he first met Will Graham; the boy who’d been born with a tattoo on his back like wings, dripping inky and black down his shoulder blades and framing his flanks. A tattoo which signifies him as one of the Remnants; a line of as yet undetermined beings with abilities bordering upon the supernatural. 

The stories of the Remnants change as often as the winds, and no one is precisely certain exactly who or what they are or where their true origins lie, only that they have the replicated genetic code of now extinct human ancestors. In the year 3087, it’s unheard of to find many of the Remnants left, and their mutated genetics skip generations at a time with no seeming adherence to science or known biology. 

“H!” Will pulls Hannibal from his wandering thoughts, his face suddenly floating upside down in front of Hannibal’s as he flips his hoverboard to dangle in the air and look him in the eyes. “You’re doing that thing again where your eyes go all glazed and you look like a statue.” 

Hannibal snorts, rolling his eyes. He flicks Will on the chin with his finger and thumb and chuckles when Will hisses and blinks before retaliating. Things devolve into a tickle fight nearly immediately, and Hannibal can barely catch his breath before they finally stop, sides in stitches and dust kicked up around them. 

“Sorry, Will,” Hannibal finally responds once he’s gotten air flowing through his lungs again, his lips pulling down in a frown. “I was thinking about my results. Soon I’ll finally know what’s wrong with me.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with you, H. You’re perfectly perfect.” Will’s grin is brighter than the sun, and it makes something clench in Hannibal’s chest. 

“Nothing can be perfectly perfect, imperfection exists in all things.” Hannibal replies diplomatically, but in his mind he can’t stop thinking about how the color of Will’s eyes reminds him of a wind-tossed sea, boundless and full of promise, or the mossy brine of a swamp teeming with life. How they seem to contain galaxies within them, the pupil shifting sometimes like an oil slick rather than simple inky blackness. 

He shakes himself free of  _ those traitorous  _ thoughts, ignoring the echo of pain it leaves behind to know Will could never be interested in him. And how could he be? To the rest of their society they are basically different species, and they both know what happens to Remnants once they’ve aged out of usefulness. Or, at least, they know there are no elders amongst the Remnants. None they’ve ever seen anyway. It’s a cloud that hangs over all their days together, knowing it might be the last they experience with one another. 

“Come. I want to show you something.” Will offers his hand to Hannibal and, though Hannibal has a hover board of his own, he doesn’t hesitate to take the hand. It’s warm and soft as silk against his own, and he climbs aboard Will’s wide board and slips one foot into the spare strap most boards include for Dragons to slip their tails into, wrapping his arms around Will’s smaller body to steady himself. 

He briefly considers what it would be like if he were a Dragon, a genetic hybrid created after the discovery of ancient Dragon DNA by a scientist known only as Wolfram. The Wolf Sect was named for him, a group of shifters who could live either as men or as creatures, unlike their Stag and Dragon counterparts who simply shared attributes of their bestial half of their genetics. Members of the Stag Sect typically developed horns or tufts of fur once they reached maturity, while Dragon’s developed tails or even wings, some of them capable of breathing fire. 

Hannibal was rapidly approaching the typical age of maturity and had shown no signs at all of developing any additional appendages to set him apart as a Stag, even though he came from a line of them spanning back over a thousand years. He frowns, considering how his life might change if his results come back as something unexpected. No matter the result his life will forever be different, if it’s determined he  _ is  _ a Stag after all his time believing himself to be something other, it’ll feel just as catastrophic. What sort of person doesn’t even know who they are? 

“H, I can  _ hear  _ you thinking from here. Stay with me.” Will’s shouts over the wind whizzing by them, his curls a riotous chestnut mess atop his head. Seeing it makes Hannibal smile, even through everything, and he squeezes just a little tighter where he holds Will around the middle. 

“I’m sorry, Will. I know it worries you when I’m like this. I’ll be better once we know something, promise.” Hannibal speaks directly into Will’s ear so his voice isn’t lost to the wind of the desert stretching out below them. 

Hannibal looks past Will’s shoulder and sees a collection of derelict buildings jutting up from the earth like jagged teeth, iron and steel and bits of cement strew across the ground below them. Will directs the board higher, following up the side of one such building, the last remaining remnant of a time long past, much like Will himself. Hannibal wonders if that’s why Will loves visiting these ruins of their long forgotten ancestors, a civilization that time has forgotten and that nature has reclaimed. Trees grow now, where once sidewalks crisscrossed the countryside, flowers and vines and roaming animals now filling the places where people once lived and worked. 

They’re close enough to the crumbling building that Hannibal reaches out a hand to run his fingers along the surface, pulling back just in time to avoid hitting the outcropping of cement that sits atop the framework. It’s cracked and crumbling, a large circle painted on the surface with an H in the middle. Hannibal recalls one of their ancient civilization textbooks depicting such an image for an ancient hospital. 

Will lowers his board until it hovers just a few inches above the surface and disembarks, offering Hannibal his shoulder to lean on while he himself climbs down. 

“This is one of my favorite places. I like to come and watch the sunrise and set from here. It reminds me of the beauty around us and that our world is so much bigger than what we know or see.” Will settles down onto his elbows, leaning back as he looks out over the sand dunes where the sun splashes out across the horizon as far as their eyes can see. It seeps into the sand, a vibrant red that’s nearly blinding, and Hannibal agrees it feels magnificent in a way little else does in their world. 

It’s silent for long enough that if Hannibal couldn’t see Will from the corner of his eye, he’d believe he had fallen asleep. Will interrupts the comfortable silence that’s settled over them, clearing his throat and turning his body to more fully look at Hannibal. Hannibal turns as well, surprised to find Will’s eyes an even brighter blue than usual, his eyes rimmed red by his tears. 

“Will, what’s wrong?” Hannibal reaches out to gently brush a stray tear away from Will’s cheek with the pad of his thumb, concerned he’s done something wrong to upset him. 

“No matter what your results say, I don’t care. You know that right? You’re my family, H. I’ve been an orphan all my life but I’ve never felt like I was missing anything because I’ve always had  _ you.  _ I trust you with my life, and I’ll do anything in my power to protect you.” Will looks away, eyes drifting to the sun where it hangs low and heavy in the distance. Hannibal understands because he too was alone before Will, but never felt the ache of that loneliness because it feels as though it’s always been just them, the two of them against the world. 

“I have to leave soon, I can feel it. If I don’t go they’ll come for me like they do all the Remnants. Send me off to  _ another town,  _ and I’ll never see you again. I’ve heard rumors… done as much research as I can without detection. There isn’t much, but the evidence I’ve found seems compelling enough to prove the potential of a city - a safe haven for people like me. But I can’t go without you, H. I love you.”

Hannibal is shocked, completely speechless for several seconds that feel suspended in amber, sluggish and full of tension. Before he’s truly given himself permission to do so, Hannibal is leaning forward to press his lips to Will’s, sloppy and a little too full of teeth in his excitement. 

Will gives a surprised huff but then returns the kiss, and Hannibal feels an electric sting shiver down his spine and then up again, burning now like flames against his back. He gasps into the kiss and pulls away suddenly, clawing his shirt up over his head because even the feel of the soft fabric is too much. 

“What’s wrong?” Will sounds anxious, reaching out to touch Hannibal’s elbow to pull him closer. 

“My back, it feels like something is clawing at me, like Dragon fire on my skin,” Hannibal whimpers, crumpling forward and wrapping his arms around his knees for comfort. He grits his teeth and Will stands up, walking behind him and letting out a shocked gasp at whatever he finds. 

Will reaches out tentative fingers and drags them whisper soft against Hannibal’s back, and the pain subsides a little at the sensation. “It’s a tattoo, H. It looks like mine except more angular with white feathers mixed in with the black.” Will pauses, fingers continuing their motions along Hannibal’s spine. “They’re beautiful, Hannibal.” 

When he pulls away there’s some blood slicking his fingertips, but not nearly as much as Hannibal would have expected from the searing pain of just a few seconds ago. Will helps Hannibal to his feet and pulls him close. Just as they are leaning together again for another kiss Hannibal’s wrist vibrates with a message, a hologram of the head city doctor appearing above his watch.

“Message for Hannibal Lecter. Your test results are inconclusive. Please return to testing site 17F within twenty-four hours to be retested. End of transmission.” 

Will rolls his eyes in amusement, chuckling. “I think we already got your results, H.” His smile drops suddenly, and Hannibal squeezes his hand where they are still clutched together. “What if they’re lying? They have to be, right? You’re a Remnant, no one else has tattoos like this. And you’re a year older than me… what if they take you?” Will’s features grow hard, resolved, and he pulls Hannibal into his body and wraps his arms around him. “I won’t let them take you, H. I won’t let them hurt either of us.”

Hannibal doesn’t even need to consider alternatives or options, the only option they ever had is stretched out before them like the sun across the sand. “Let’s run, together. Let’s go now. Destroy our devices and just go, we’ll walk until we find another city, until we find anything other than what lies behind us. You say you’ll protect me, well I would protect you as well, with my life. I’ll never let them separate us.” 

Will’s smile softens and his eyes glitter with joy, and Hannibal corrects his earlier thought - this is perfection, Will Graham happy and content, with an entire world of endless possibilities ahead of them. 

Will doesn’t reply with words, he simply closes the small space between them and rests their foreheads together until they’re breathing the same small pocket of air, their lungs rising and falling in tandem. He nudges Hannibal’s chin and slots their lips together and Hannibal thinks,  _ yes,  _ they’ll run. They’ll stay together through whatever comes next. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you enjoy our collaborative works you should follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/BellaRaiWrites) and [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bellaraiwrites) for all sorts of extra content and teasers!
> 
> We also have a Discord server where you can chat with us, throw us prompts, and post images/art inspired by our work! You may also catch a snippet or two of some WIPs! DM us on Twitter for details!
> 
> 'Til next time! 💚 💜 BellaRai


End file.
